David Albahar

He was a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and a University of Belgrade graduate. Albahari was awarded the prestigious NIN Award for the best novel of 1996 for Mamac (Bait). He was among the award's finalists on seven other occasions.

David Albahar studied at University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy and Zemun Gymnasium. The recorded working language is English and Serbian. The field of work recorded is literary activity and translating activity. John Updike and William Faulkner are recorded as an influence. Work by David Albahar is recorded in the collections of Polja (Fields), magazine for culture and art collection. Distinctions recorded are NIN Prize, Andrić Prize, Vilenica Prize and Isidora Sekulić Award.

• Name — David Albahari • Born — 15 March 1948 • Birthplace — Peć, PR Serbia, FPR Yugoslavia • Died — 30 July 2023 • Place of death — Belgrade, Serbia • Occupation — Writer, novelist • Education — University of Belgrade Faculty of Philology • Children — Natan Albahari Rebeka Albahari

David Albahari was born on 15 March 1948 in Peć, in the former Yugoslav region of Kosovo to a Sephardic Jewish father and a mother of Serbian origin (who had previously been married to an Ashkenazi Jewish man killed in the Holocaust, as were their children and as was the first family of his father, which Albahari himself defined as "Four children had to die so that I, and my sister, would be born."). Albahari published the first collection of short stories Porodično vreme ("Family Time") in 1973. He became better known to wider audience in 1982 with a volume Opis smrti ("A Description of Death") for which he got the Andrić Prize. In 1991 he became the chair of the Federation of Jewish Communes of Yugoslavia, and worked on evacuation of the Jewish population from besieged Sarajevo. In 1994, he moved with his family to Calgary in the Canadian province of Alberta, where he lived until 2012 when he returned to live in Belgrade. He continued to write and publish in the Serbian language. In the late 1980s, Albahari initiated the first formal petition to legalize marijuana in Yugoslavia. Albahari died after a long illness in Belgrade on 30 July 2023, at the age of 75.

• "Cink" (1988). Tsing, trans. David Albahari (Northwestern University Press, 1997) • "Snežni čovek" (1995). Snow Man, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Douglas & McIntyre, 2005) • "Mamac" (1996). Bait, trans. Peter Agnone (Northwestern University Press, 2001) • "Gec i Majer" (1998). Götz and Meyer, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Harvill, 2004; Harcourt, 2005; Dalkey Archive, 2015) • "Svetski putnik" (2001). Globetrotter, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Yale University Press, 2014) • "Pijavice" (2005). Leeches, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Mariner Books, 2011) • "Kontrolni punkt" (2011). Checkpoint, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Restless Books, 2018) • "Životinjsko carstvo" (2014) • "Danas je sreda" (2017) • "Pogovor" (2021)

• Words Are Something Else, ed. Tomislav Longinović; trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Northwestern University Press, 1996). Selections from collections published between 1973 and 1993. • Learning Cyrillic: Stories, trans. Ellen Elias-Bursać (Geopoetika, 2012; Dalkey Archive, 2014). Selections from collections published between 1997 and 2009.

The authorities additionally record the heading David Albahari. His recorded languages were English and Serbian.

David Albahar is recorded as having received NIN Prize, Andrić Prize and Vilenica Prize.